


For Love or Money

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:34:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the ideal of what could have been disintegrates before his eyes, Juan is questioned on his motivation and learns that, in F1, truth is a commodity to be traded with care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Love or Money

_Indianapolis, 2003_

It was over.

Juan Pablo Montoya stared at the patch of grey tarmac between his splayed, blue-clad feet, and wondered how it had all come to this. To his mind, an ending signified a new beginning elsewhere: when one door closed, another one opened. It had always been that way for him, from the days he'd spent growing up in Bogota to his time on the ovals, and thence onward and upward (or sideward, as some of his colleagues had said snidely at the time) into Formula One.

Now, while he examined his hands without any interest – the same hands that had won him two championships in CART – he recalled his first few seasons in F1. These same hands had bunched into fists and swung out at Jacques Villeneuve in instinctive, riled response when his old rival had sneeringly suggested that he cooled his act, that he should learn from his betters – and, most importantly, that he should respect those who had gone before him.

At the time, Juan had assumed that Jacques was talking about himself. Now, too late, he realised that he hadn't meant that at all. That much had become devastatingly clear this weekend, when – once again – Jacques had seized the opportunity to stick the knife in and twist it a little deeper.

"Montoya doesn't respect anybody on the grid," Villeneuve was quoted as saying in every media outlet. "Michael at least has some respect for other drivers."

Juan had had to bite his tongue to avoid raising the question of just how much respect Michael had for all those drivers he'd deliberately shunted off the track in his efforts to win - drivers who included Villeneuve, at that. As far as Juan could see, the only man Michael had ever had any respect for was Mika Häkkinen, and everybody knew why that situation was so superficially harmonious.

But 'respect' had become the buzzword of the weekend after Jacques' outburst. Patrick had called together his drivers and fixed them both with the gimlet eye he usually reserved for serious misdemeanours. Ralf had leaned against the wall, one arm crossed against his chest and his free hand held to his forehead, fingers gently moving in an effort to stave off a headache. Juan watched him from the corner of his eye, wondering how best to read his team-mate as Patrick began to speak.

"Respect," Patrick said, loudly enough in the confines of the garage to make Ralf wince slightly, "respect has to be earned in this business. Both of you have done a decent job this year. You know what the stakes are. You know there are no team orders. But I want the two of you to treat each other with respect when you're out there. You know what I mean."

And Juan had risked a direct glance at Ralf, who had met his gaze with an unperturbed equanimity that worried Juan far more than the darkling, contemptuous looks he usually threw at him. No team orders but the unspoken ones; and unspoken agreements only worked if both parties were gentlemen.

Neither Juan nor Ralf were gentlemen. This was not going to be easy. They had walked back to the motorhome in silence, trying to avoid a swamp of reporters and cameramen who wanted a quick word on the race, on Montoya's state of mind, and whether Ralf would decide that blood was thicker than water. The latter question had been on Juan's mind for a long time, and although he thought it had been partially answered by that overtaking manoeuvre in Hungary, the doubt still bobbed in a sea of paranoia.

As the door to the motorhome closed behind them, Ralf sank down onto a couch with a weariness that Juan recognised as more than the usual race weekend blues. They'd been team-mates for a few years now, and although their initial frostiness had since melted into mere chilly reserve, Juan liked to think that he could predict Ralf's moods. Race weekend usually found him highly stressed, bitterly anxious, and frustratingly, furiously waspish.

Juan pattered past him and opened the fridge, peering inside and selecting a carton of juice. He lifted the box to Ralf, who shook his head numbly.

"Water would be good," he'd added as an afterthought.

Juan nodded, silently filling a glass with water from the cooler and then carrying both glass and carton across to the couch. He punctured the foil seal on the carton and drank directly from it, ignoring Ralf's moue of distaste. Instead, he put his feet up on the coffee table between them and watched as Ralf popped out a couple of pills from a blister-pack, swallowing them down with a gulp of water.

"You going to be okay to race?" Juan asked.

Ralf looked up, his expression spiky. "Like you care."

"Hey, I might." Juan was hurt by the accusation in Ralf's tone. "If neither of us win the WDC, at least we can bag the Constructors'."

"Interesting emphasis," Ralf mused, nursing his glass of water.

Juan frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"By late Sunday afternoon, you could be in the strongest position you've ever had to be the World Champion, with only one race left to go. Does that mean anything to you? Anything at all?"

"Of course it does!" Juan protested. "You've heard the questions the media ask me over and over – they asked you the same questions earlier in the year, remember?"

Ralf put down the glass and leaned forwards, his eyes fixed on Juan's. "I remember. And I remember that our answers were very different. I always hedged my bets, played down possibilities. You always say what's on your mind."

Juan shook his head, bewildered. "There's nothing wrong with honesty."

"There is when it can drag you down." Ralf's forehead was furrowed with pain as the headache took hold; and his accent, so prim in English, began to slide back into the harsh, flat vowels of Westphalia. "Truth is such an ugly word, Juan. This business, this world… so much glitter and not enough gold. And even when you think you've found gold, when you look closely you realise it's just gilt."

"I know the difference," Juan said softly. "I'm not an idiot."

Ralf's smile was tired. "Gilt. Guilt. Funny, isn't it, that those words are so alike… Honesty is never the best policy. You should always lie."

Juan lifted his chin stubbornly. "I don't believe in that."

"Then more fool you." Ralf lay back against the couch and sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment. "Off the record: do you think you'll win? And how upset will you be if you lose?"

Juan considered his responses before replying. "I'd like to think I could win, but I won't be upset if it doesn't happen. There's always next year, I suppose."

Ralf's eyes snapped open and his head jerked forwards. "That's from your heart?"

"Yes."

"Then you should learn to lie. That is not a racing driver's answer. Even Rubens would not have made such an answer. You don't care about the championship; you don't care if you come second. Nobody remembers who comes second, Juan."

"You should know," was the caustic reply, but Ralf refused to be ruffled by it.

"I didn't come into this world to be a champion," Ralf revealed quietly. "I came because I have something to prove; a score to settle. And when it is complete, then I will walk away from this sport and close the door, and that will be the end of it, and I will never look back."

Juan looked at his team-mate curiously. "Why do you race?"

Another smile: bitter this time. "Not for love nor money."

"Sometimes I don't understand you."

Ralf's smile softened slightly. "It is not required that you understand me; but you should understand yourself."

Juan's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Oh?"

"My brother does not care for you. He never has. I know he can be very… compelling – believable, almost – but truth, Juan, is a sword with two edges."

"He and Mika were lovers and they never went easy on each other," Juan said levelly. "Just because we share a bed, it doesn't mean I'll hand him the race."

Ralf steepled his fingers and gazed calmly at his team-mate. "With all due respect, you are not Mika. Theirs was a… special relationship."

"I know what I'm worth!" Juan insisted, sitting on the edge of the couch in his agitation. "I won't allow personal feelings to get in the way of the race. I won't."

It was so easy to say those words, Juan reflected dismally as he stared at his hands and heard the cheers of the tifosi resounding again and again, a great wave of acclamation from all around the circuit. It was so easy to say those words to Ralf, then for him to deny them again as soon as he saw Michael. Oh yes, it had been madness pure and simple that had led him to Michael's bed at the end of last season, and the madness had been fed by the thrill not only of transgression – marrying Connie had felt incredibly naughty when he knew where his heart lay – but of the sheer hopelessness of the situation.

"Like Romeo and Juliet," he'd even said once as they lay in the safety of an anonymous hotel room. "Montagues and Capulets, Williams and Ferrari."

And Michael had turned onto his side, pondering the similarities as he stroked a possessive hand over Juan's chest. "Would it have been different had you been at Ferrari instead of Rubens?"

Juan had answered straight away: "Yes, because I cannot bear to be a number two driver, even to you."

"And yet at Williams, you are not a number one driver, either," Michael had reminded him silkily.

"Neither is Ralf," Juan shot back, goaded.

"As you please. But always in a so-called equal relationship, there is one who emerges on top…"

And Michael had demonstrated what he meant in a way that left Juan limp and gasping with burnt-out pleasure, and Juan had forgotten his comment on Romeo and Juliet, and had forgotten how that particular story ended.

He was reminded of it during the PR event on Sunday morning, when Michael had started fooling around with Kimi, snatching the sponsor's cap off the young Finn's head and hiding it behind his back, daring Kimi to reach around and embrace him in an effort to retrieve it. Juan watched the horseplay with a steadily mounting anger before he left his conversation with Rubens and stamped over to Michael, seizing the cap and jamming it back onto Kimi's head with a violence that surprised the both of them. Kimi had sidled away, his English becoming more broken than usual, and Juan had been left to face Michael.

"It's just a game, Juan Pablo," Michael said softly, his eyes narrowed.

"A game." The repetition was unnecessary, but it had to be said. "And me?"

Michael waved to the assembled crowd as if he were offering dispensation, his tone neutral but his eyes tigerish as he said: "You were just part of the game, too."

Juan kept his temper only by massive effort of will. "So it meant nothing."

"Of course not. Surely you know me by now?" Michael's expression, so smugly gleeful, illuminated his whole being. "I thought my reputation preceded me."

"And I thought you told the truth."

That genuinely startled him. "Me? No. Not at all. Never."

And that had hurt far more than anything else that year. The timing was surely deliberate, Juan realised as he sat in his fourth-place slot on the grid. He should never have expected Michael to play fair. He should have listened to Villeneuve's snappish advice. But then, things are so much clearer with the benefit of hindsight.

Now the race was over, as was his Championship hope. Juan didn't yet want to consider what state his relationship with Michael was in, and he hated himself for still clinging to the belief that there was a relationship left to salvage. He'd got it all wrong, had grimly gone about blinkered with naïveté, and now all he had left… All he had left…

Footsteps behind him alerted Juan to another's presence, but he couldn't quite bring himself to straighten up from his slumped position on a pile of used and worn tyres. The tarmac had held his attention for so long that he quite liked the patterning of cracks and spitted grey pebbles embedded into parc ferme.

"Why did you do it?" asked Ralf suddenly. "All those wrong calls… It wasn't just the team getting confused. I was down there, Juan. I could see what you were doing. You threw away the Championship – just let it go without a fight. What the hell did you do that for?"

Juan drew in a shaky breath. "Not for love," he said, a wobbly smile on his lips. "And certainly not for money."

"Then – what?" prompted Ralf gently, almost moved to pity.

Juan looked at his hands again. They were shaking. He clasped them together, lacing his fingers and forcing his palms one against the other. "For truth," he said at last. "I'm not ready yet. Maybe I'll never be ready. But today I raced for truth."

Ralf stood silent and looked down on him, distant-eyed. "Next season, you will learn to lie," he said. "As I did. As we all did."

"Yes," Juan agreed faintly, trying to stop his prayerful hands from trembling further. "Yes, I will learn to lie."


End file.
